populate ('recipients') // <==. 0. You can use an $in operator and provide an array of IDs as is to the mongo. E.g. you can query the users that has specified IDs from the array: const followedUsers = await User.find ( { _id: { $in: followedIDs } }); console.log (followedUsers); But, make sure that your followedIDs is an array of ObjectId. I am having an issue where my mongoose query does not populate an array correctly. What is the current behavior? Nested deep populate on arrays · Issue #41 · … node.js - Mongoose populate in array - Stack Overflow Populate only returning one of the items in the array How to use Populate in Mongoose & Node.js - DEV Community I understand that it is *generally* bad practice to store image files directly in Mongo, however: - My app is a hobby project, not commercial - I'm confident that this is the only case for backend image storage in my app - The images will be small-size only (maybe 80px across in the user listings on the front end) populate mongoose array of ids code example populate ('recipients') // <==. Château de Versailles | Site officiel I have a model and a controller that are working almost perfectly. mongoose populate array of object id code example Example 1: mongodb populate document Story . mongoose save return id. mongoose populate array of ids Whatever. I have just started with Mongoose and am trying to get populate() to work using a very basic example. findOne ({_id: userId}). populate array of ObjectId without ref, not work #4695 - GitHub The reason being, mongodb expects that multiple documents in the products table may match with this criteria, and hence by default puts all the docs in an array.